The present invention relates to a method for managing operators of a telecommunications network which are members of an operator service; the telecommunications network having switching offices and after an operator has logged on to its home switching office in a data channel, the operator logs on to the peripheral line trunk group (LTG) of the operator via the data channel.
Operator services which constitute an essential link between the customers of the network and the network operators are required in telephone networks. Such an operator service has diverse functions, one function can be to distribute information to subscribers on request. For example, a subscriber may call an operator service in an ISDN network and request information. The respective operator can then, if necessary, access a database, in which case information relating to another subscriber is then provided the operator on the screen of a PC. After a connection request by the operator, which can be effected by pressing a push-button key, the operator is connected to the searched-for subscriber. The operator is then connected back to the originating subscriber and to the searched-for subscriber and can optionally speak to one of the subscribers. Signaling on the D channel then takes place again at the push of a further push-button key, and the connection situations of the two subscribers of the peripheral line connecting group are indicated. The call channels are then connected via the switching matrix so that ultimately there is a direct link between the two subscribers. The example described here represents just one of the possibilities or functions of an operator service.
Large networks for a large number of subscribers require a correspondingly large number of operator service systems with a large number of generally hierarchically structured system subscribers (operators), for example, the Applicant's system which is called ADMOSS. Messages from the operators to the switching office are sent, as previously mentioned, via the D channel in an ISDN network, specifically in a point-to-point configuration with a permanently active layer 2 of the OSI layer model. The messages are transmitted in an ISDN network with the support of the D channel protocol, for which reason, reference is made to the Blue Book, Volume VI—Fascicle VI. 11, “Digital Subscribe Signaling System No. 1 (DSS1), Network Layer, User-Network Management,” Recommendations Q. 930-Q. 940, in particular to recommendation Q. 931.
The operators are generally located in call centers, and a respective device, which can be a terminal, PC, screen etc. and referred to as “Console”, is directly connected to the system and/or can be connected to the local switching office. However, the need to use decentralized operators, for example, within the context of homework, is being increasingly felt, but a single central management system for the operators in the network should still be possible.
Similar issues relating to operators are also described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,512. The solution described in the present invention to shorten the time expended is not only capable of displaying and processing the requested data of a subscriber on the screen of the operator, but also data which the operator obtained on request from one or more databases.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,504 describes a call distributor system having a host computer together with a database which is physically connected to all the switching offices, and serves as a system for switching the data between the individual switching offices to which operators of an operator service are connected. In the system, a call link is first offered to an operator via the local switching office, if the operator is not suitably located for this call, this call is transferred to a further operator using the host computer, this transfer being made using a special protocol, referred to as “intertandem protocol.” This protocol uses a DTMF method. The expenditure incurred as a result of the use of the host computer in conjunction with the X.25 interface protocol, described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,469,504, and the intertandem protocol is, however, considered to be disadvantageous.